Book-sellers, librarians and the reading public, rejoice in the land of the Turks, as a whole swath of banned titles now re-admitted include communist tomes and a comic book, among thousands of titles kept out of public reach by Turkey over the decades. Presently, they have been taken off the contraband list, as part of a government reform bill.

The motion to revisit the restricted list started in July when the parliament adopted a bill setting out that any decision taken before 2012 to block the sale and supply of published works would be obsolete if no court chose to confirm the ruling within six months.

But the ban ordained from above does not translate as a ban on the ground and in the publishing world readers have had on their specs and been eye-balling many an ilicit title. "Most [bans] have been forgotten over the years and publishers have resumed printing the banned books."

One strictly prohibited Turkish poet Nazim Hikmet, who died in exile in Moscow in 1963, had already found his way to the shelves despite the public ban.

"The mindset hasn't changed and people (in the administration) will continue to do whatever they think is right," said Omer Faruk, a former head of the Ayrinti publishing house.

He cited as an example the fate of one of his provocative published books: the erotic "Philosophy in the Bedroom" by infamous French writer Marquis de Sade. The text branded too bawdy was struck off the state’s good books list, but the Supreme Court overturned the call. Yet "despite the ruling, the book continues to be seized", Faruk said.

"Many of the students arrested in demonstrations are kept in prison because they're carrying banned books," said the publishing official.

That excuse to arrest the menace of 'nerds' will have to be dropped now for something that will stand up in court.

Share your thoughts on reader's rights to all copyright titles: Do you think the Turks mean business and want to liberate books for the sake of introducing more freedoms or is this just a symbolic show in the face of Arab and Muslim world unrest?